


Asperity

by mesonyx



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Female Relationships, Gen, Sibling Rivalry, Sister-Sister Relationship, Yuletide, Yuletide 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-23 14:54:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2551661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mesonyx/pseuds/mesonyx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two weapons were better than one... If they worked together it would be like wielding a weapon in each hand. But one sword cannot trust another; a sword cannot have a sister.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Asperity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [uschickens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/uschickens/gifts).



> Thank you to [primeideal](http://archiveofourown.org/users/primeideal) and [Framlingem](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Framlingem/pseuds/Framlingem) for beta'ing and feedback!
> 
> Written as a gift for uschickens. Hope you enjoy! Happy Yuletide!

She does everything in her power to make the others love her. She doesn’t know what love is, or what one does with it when they have it, but it seems a lot like power, and Nebula knows what power is.

To Thanos, she strives to be the perfect daughter. She follows his whims, however petty or insignificant. She excels at the training he offers. She lives to be his weapon. But just as a knife grows dull with use, Nebula begins to lose patience with him and his refusal to respond to her with anything like affection. Her obedience starts to suffer. Even as she bites her tongue and still somehow a hint of sarcasm slips out. 

But her comments go unnoticed. Her father is not watching. His eyes, as always, are fixed on her sister, Gamora, who at the moment is slicing through a hologram as part of a training program. She moves like something liquid, free and fluid, unhindered by unimportant things like jealousy or need or the force of gravity.

Nebula feels the tensile cords in her joints go rigid. A knot of electricity slides up her spine.

When Thanos sends them to aid Ronan the Accuser, neither of them are given any room to object. But to Gamora, before she leaves, Thanos extends his hand, and touches her shoulder. It is the first truly fatherly gesture Nebula has ever seen, and something in her metallic core grinds against itself.

With Ronan, she submits with even greater commitment. She is more than just his sword; she is his animal, pulling at her leash. She’s not simply following his commands, but anticipating them. She strikes where he asks her to strike. She struggles to keep herself from lashing out at times, and still sometimes she says the wrong thing. He raises his voice to her when in the presence of others. He raises his hand when they’re alone.

But even so Nebula remains compliant. Sometimes she is stubborn, but she never disregards an order. She wants to gain their love. She thinks love is like power. But neither Thanos nor Ronan ever answer her obedience with what Nebula wants.

Their favor is reserved for Gamora, Nebula’s sister. Gamora, who is willful and who talks back. Gamora, who is older, and wiser, and should know better, and who should set a better example for her sisters. And yet Gamora somehow never fails. She is the one their father loves. She is the one Ronan respects. She is even the one that Nebula hates the least, but not because she is taken in by Gamora’s perfection in the face of her apparent disobedience. It is because Nebula knows that she is better than her sister. 

She’s seen Gamora kill people. She’s watched her take others down - so many others, in so many ways. Guns, blades, hands, feet. There’s a moment of hesitation each time, a shiver. A slice of time where guilt creeps in, or remorse, or something like it.

Gamora is soft. Her skin is penetrable. Her body leaks its crude colored fluid when pierced or torn. Even with body mods, she can be broken. She can be hurt. She can feel pain.

It’s embarrassing.

And yet she has something Nebula doesn’t, and Nebula doesn’t know how to take it from her.

 

They didn’t share a childhood because they were never children. Gamora was, perhaps briefly, up until the moment her parents died before her eyes. But Nebula? Nebula never had the luxury of being a child. She had never known a life free from responsibilities and expectations. Background calculations of risks and analyses have always been running in her head. In combat, her body runs on its own, a combination of her natural instinct and programmed robotic parts. She can determine where a hit will land before the aggressor tenses a muscle. She can predict the flight path of a bullet before a trigger’s even touched. 

And yet she cannot see where Gamora comes from and where she goes. Gamora, who has her own agenda. Gamora, who does not care what others think, but cares in another kind of way. Gamora, who suffers from compassion. 

Nebula’s calculations and strategies fail her there. They’d been called sister since before they even met, and when they were new to one another - wary, unsure - it was a way to foster a relationship between them. A shortcut to building trust. Two weapons were better than one, after all. If they worked together it would be like wielding a weapon in each hand. But one sword cannot trust another; a sword cannot have a sister.

When Gamora betrays them all, Ronan is outraged. Thanos is disappointed, but he still calls her “favorite.” As he says the word Nebula’s processors whirr fiercely in their alloy chassis and overheat. 

But Nebula is relieved. She hated Gamora least of all their siblings, but hated her all the same. She had something Nebula wanted. Now is her chance to take it. Love is like power, power is like love - it’s all the same to Nebula, and she will destroy Gamora or a thousand worlds however she has to, if that’s what it takes.

She thinks she’s won when she obliterates Gamora’s tiny mining vessel in the space outside of Knowhere. The continuous grinding in her core comes to a halt, and it feels like losing something familiar. She tells herself she’s satisfied and turns away. She cannot watch her sister die.

She regrets not staying, and doesn’t know why.

She doesn’t expect to see Gamora again after that, so when Gamora boards the Kree ship with others, Nebula is livid. She should have struck before speaking. She could have killed them all in an instant if she had only bitten her tongue in that moment. But instead, she sputters an insult and is taken off-guard by a blow from someone’s gun. 

Once her circuits snap and sizzle back into consciousness, Nebula reassembles herself. Her skeleton cinches and clicks itself back into place, and her conductive outer covering knits together where it’s been torn. She’s leaking coolant and cruor, but Nebula staggers to her feet to confront her sister once again. This time she’s bringing the fight to Gamora.

Guns, blades, hands, feet. It doesn’t matter what weapons they use. It’s the words that are most cutting.

“It is time we stand up for what is right,” Gamora tells her, but Nebula doesn’t hear. The grinding returns, and she cannot hear anything above its metallic echo in her chest.

“Come with me,” Gamora says, but Nebula doesn’t listen. She is deaf to what Gamora is really saying. “Sister, come help us fight Ronan. You know he’s crazy.”

“I know we’re both crazy,” Nebula replies, and she cuts off her hand to spite her sister.

Nebula does everything in her power to make the others love her, to take it from them if she has to. 

But she can’t take what is freely given.


End file.
